STACK 
ANNEX 




THE LABOR PROBLEM-EXPANSION AND ITS EFFECT 
ON AMERICAN LABOR. 

TO REPEAL WAR REVENUE TAXATION. 



SPEECHES 



HON. JAMES M. ROBINSON, 

OF INDIANA, 



IN THE 



HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 



February 17 and 1-8, 19O2. 



WASHINGTON. 

I9O2. 



The Labor Problem Expansion and Its Effect on American 

Labor. 



SPEECHES 

OF 

HON. JAMES M. ROBINSON, 

OF INDIANA, 
Tuesday, Februai-y 18, 1902. 



The House being in Committee of the Whole on the state of the Union, and 
having under consideration the bill (H. R. 11353) making appropriations for 
the current and contingent expenses of the Indian Departmant and for ful- 
filling treaty stipulations with various Indian tribes for the fiscal year ending 
June 30, 1903, and for other purposes- 
Mr. LITTLE. I yield to the gentleman from Indiana [Mr. 
ROBINSON] . 

Mr. ROBINSON of Indiana said: 

Mr. CHAIRMAN: I agree with the gentleman from Tennessee 
[Mr. PADGETT] that upon the shoulders of labor rests the burden 
of taxation. 

Labor is likewise burdened by trust exactions imposed by the 
combinations mentioned by the gentleman from North Carolina 
[Mr. Pou]. 

These trusts and monopolies have flooded the field of industries 
in the last few years. Why do you not consult the interest of 
labor when you mold the policies of government? So far from 
consulting it, yon mould impose taxes on labor that you may fur- 
ther oppress it, under the plea of "trade expansion," by bringing 
into competition with it the lowest-paid labor in the world. 

Our present colonial policy, which so vitally and adversely af- 
fects labor, received its full measure of encouragement by a tax- 
ation of the masses to augment the surplus in the Treasury. 

The toilers who bear the taxation are made to feel the heavy 
hand not only in taxation, but in appropriations, to bring within 
our domain and hold Asiatic and tropical peoples who will dispute 
with them in all the walks and avenues of labor. 

From earliest time there has been a conflict for supremacy be- 
tween those of the race well favored with world's goods and 
those who struggled for subsistence. At first this conflict was 
waged by force of arms. Brute force and violence held full 
sway. The weak succumbed to the strong and became their serfs 
and slaves. Later in the progress of the world governments were 
established to equalize conditions, to guarantee rights, and to 
redress wrongs. 

The struggles between the contending forces have gone on 
through governmental institutions, and in this country to-day 
the only real power of government that needs to be controlled 
by any interest to dominate all the others is taxation. It in- 
volves the raising and equipping of armies, the creation of navies; 
4952 3 



2003098 



it involves expansion; it involves everything in government, for 
appropriations, which are the life of administration, must be 
preceded by taxation. 

Taxation can create or destroy. In government it has done 
loth. If taxes were so adjusted as to charge by tolls and tributes 
those special interests clamoring for colonies and expansion and 
exclusively receiving the benefits of it, in short, if the people were, 
by a system of taxation, relieved from this burden and it was 
placed on commercialdom, where it belongs, this policy would 
cease and we woiald be spared the evils that follow in its train. 

The power of taxation has been used to foster li infant indus- 
tries " and is still used to " protect " them after they have reached 
full manhood. Everything in government that is known is made 
or unmade through the great power of taxation. 

The producers of wealth the laboring men pay the greater 
part of the tributes levied by the Government in the form of taxes. 

But what recognition is accorded to them in legislation? The 
Government in late years, under the policy adopted by the Ad- 
ministration, has come to tax the people each year on an average 
$10 a head for the support of National Government. This 
amount falls heavily on the laboring man and his family, when 
to it must be added the State, county, and municipal taxes neces- 
sary to support local administration. 

A large share of the national taxes is expended for the luxury 
of a colonial policy that tends to bring closer to us and into our 
dominion an Asiatic cheap and competing labor which lowers the 
level of our labor and makes it less able to bear its burden of tax. 
The annexation of every new island opens a flood gate to cheap 
labor. It will be a menace so long as boats ply between the 
ports. You can not keep it out when the bars are once laid' down 
unless you can eradicate the cupidity of man. 

It will be useless to try when you are adding more coasts to 
watch, more territory to patrol. With the ingenuity and cun- 
ning of man, and the sordidness of the navigation corporations, 
it will be physically impossible to keep cheap labor away, not to 
mention the impolicy and destructive consequences of attempt- 
ing to prevent free migration from one part of our country to 
another. Where will the line be drawn? How long will a people 
under our flag be bound down by restrictions on their travels? 
Will they not ever be in revolt, or be abject slaves to the unjust 
system of American colonial rule? 

California and the Pacific coast States that have been afflicted 
as with a plague by the incoming of Asiatics seek by act of Con- 
gress to keep out the Chinese inhabitants of Hawaii. This is 
manifestly in the interest of labor, but can it be lawfully done? 

The Japanese and Filipinos are as great a menace to labor as 
the Chinese. Many of the former as artisans are along the streets 
of the populous cities, many are working as domestics, and many 
are on the f arms and in the gardens of California and the West- 
ern States, and many more are scattered over the face of this 
broad country disputing with their low grade of living and low 
wages that labor which has heretofore been performed by 
Americans. 

But it seems we must deal gently with the Japanese because 
they aided us in the trouble in China; because, forsooth, Japan is 
ready to aid in the division and exploitation of China. 

So far from showing the proper interest in labor, you make not 



the least efforts to keep out the Japanese, a more dangerous men 
ace to American labor than the Chinese. You exclude the latter, 
why not the Japanese? You have the power. The Japanese 
treaty of 1894 gives you expressly the power. I read on page 353 
of the Compilation of Treaties, in force, of 1899, article 2, para- 
graph 3: 

It is, however, understood that the stipulations contained in this and the 
preceding article do not in any way affect the laws, ordinances, and regula- 
tions with regard to trade, the immigration of laborers, police, and pub- 
lic security which are in force or which may hereafter be enacted in either 
of the two countries. 

Sir, the reason for the retention of the Philippines is for the ex- 
ploitation of China. This policy is urged on and encouraged not 
by the patriots, no tby the men who labor and pay our taxes, but 
by those who want to profit at the expense of weaker people. 
What is our attitude in China? It can all be gathered in brief 
from pages 43 to 45 of President Roosevelt's message. 

The President says: 

Owing to the rapid growth of our power and our interests on the Pacific, 
whatever happens in China must be of the keenest national concern to us. 
The general terms of the settlement of the questions growing out of the anti- 
foreign upri&ings in China of 1900, having been formulated in a joint note 
addressed to China by the representatives of the injured powers in Decem- 
ber last, were promptly accepted by the Chinese Government. After pro- 
tracted conferences the plenipotentiaries of the several powers were able to 
sign a final protocol with the Chinese plenipotentiaries on the 7th of last Sep- 
temb2r, sotting forth the measures taken by China in compliance with the 
demands of the joint note, and expressing their satisfaction therewith. 

" Promptly accepted " are proper terms of designation of the 
action of China, which seeks to rule 400,000,000 people with an 
inert soldiery. 

Why shmild not China ' ' promptly accept ' ' what all the powers 
of Europe and what the United States, all with trained soldiers 
on her territory, demanded of her? 

What further does the President say: 

Provisions have been made for insuring the future safety of the foreign 
representatives in Peking by setting aside for their exclusive use a quarter 
of the city which the powers can make defensibla and in which they can, if 
necessary, maintain permanent military guards; by dismantling the military 
works between the capital and the sea, and by allowing the temporary main- 
tenance of foreign military posts along this line. An edict has been issued 
by the Emperor of China prohibiting for two years the importation of arms 
and ammunition into China. 

Here is a surrender of sovereignty by a weaker country to the 
superior force of the joint powers. Here is the first step in the 
dismemberment of China by the other countries of the world. 
We join in the erection of military forts and establishments in a 
foreign country. 

Under the provisions of the joint note of December, 1900, China has agreed 
to revise the treaties of commerce and navigation and to take such other 
steps for the purpose of facilitating foreign trade as the foreign powers may 
decide to be needed. 

Here it is shown that China yields to the other countries, " the 
powers," the right and authority to dictate and decide what is 
needed in the revision of China's treaties of commerce and navi- 
gation, and is to take such other steps " for the facilitation of for- 
eign trade " as the foreign powers may decide to be needed. 

This is an abdication of power of government by China forced 
by "the powers." 

Again this surrender of power is shown: 

The Chinese Government has agreed to participate financially in the work 
of bettering the water approaches to Shanghai and to Tientsin, the centers of 
4952 



foreign trade in central and northern China, and an international conserv- 
ancy board, in which the Chinese Government is largely represented, has 
been provided for the improvement of the Shanghai River and the control of 
its navigation. 

Then follows a statement which shows how far the United 
States and Europe has encroached on China. It shows a monopo- 
lizing of a material part of the taxing power of government by 
the United States and ' the powers." It reads: 

In the same line of commercial advantages a revision of the present tariff 
on imports has been assented to for the purpose of substituting specific for 
ad valorem duties, and an expert has been sent abroad on the part of the 
United States to assist in this work. A list of articles to remain free of duty, 
including flour, cereals, and rice, gold and silver coin and bullion, has also 
been agreed upon in the settlement. 

Thus we control the tariff laws of China. Is this proper? Is it 
wise for our country to enter into the affairs of another country? 
Wotild our country submit to any such rule, such exactions by 
other countries? 

We lay a tariff tax on wheat and flour and rice in our Dingley 
bill, but in the tariff bill that we joined " the powers " in forcing 
on China we put them on the free list. 

A singular and portentous anomaly. Republicans standing for 
protection in America and for free trade in China. In tariffs 
they stand for one thing in the United States, another thing for 
Cuba; for one thing at one time in Porto Rico, and for another at 
another time, and for still another policy in China, and for a 
mixed policy in the Philippines. 

To this incongruity does the avidity for power and thirst for 
dominion lead us. 

Surely in polity and in domestic rule each nation is the equal 
of any other. 

Surely no rule of this Government can be found to justify us 
in levying a tribute on, or assuming a governmental function in, 
or exacting a right to pass a revenue law for China. 

Continuing the President, as if in palliation of our conduct, says: 

During these troubles our Government has unswervingly advocated 
moderation, and has materially aided in bringing about an adjustment which 
tends to enhance the welfare of China. 

On page 45 of his message the President says: 

Leaving no effort untried to work out the great policy of full and fair in- 
tercourse between China and the nations on a footing of equal rights and 
advantages to all. We advocate the "open door" with all that it implies; 
not merely the procurement of enlarged commercial opportunities on the 
coasts, but access to the interior by the waterways with which China has 
been so extraordinarily favored. Only by bringing the people of China into 
peaceful and friendly community of trade with all the peoples of the earth 
can the work now auspiciously begun be carried to fruition. In the attain- 
ment of this purpose, we necessarily claim parity of treatment, under the 
conventions, throughout the Empire for our trade and our citizens with 
those of all other powers. 

What has the Philippine " open door " done for us in the Philip- 
pines? It has given us a war that has cost hundreds of millions of 
treasure and thousands of lives, and in return for this, according 
to the last annual report of the Secretary of War. on page 76 and 
77, we get in trade (let me read) : li Out of a total in one year of 
$53,000,000 of imports and exports the United States got the paltry 
amount of $5 ,000 ,000 . both amounts in round numbers. ' ' Ten per 
cent of profit in this trade would represent $500.000 as the 
recompense to the traders for the expenditures of war by the 
nation. Does it pay? Let us be honest with ourselves. Let us 
be fair to the people. Does it pay? 

4952 



This is a new system of international comity this nation to rale 
another for her benefit. This sounds again like "manifest des- 
tiny," but used in a different sense than that in which the Presi- 
dent used it once in his work on Thomas H. Benton, of Missouri. 
In that work he styled those who favored aggression on weaker 
peoples as men of " easy international morality." 

The President shows, in his message, our purposes and inten- 
tions to share in the arbitrary rule of China, and mellows this 
harsh and unwarranted treatment by the assertions that it is our 
right and for her good. 

Thus we face the great and momentous problem, whether this 
nation should assume the dangers and evils and entanglements 
that will ensue from the dismemberment of China, to which this 
policy of the party in power unerringly and inevitably leads. 

The President likewise shows that the " open door," which is 
England's colonial policy, will prevail in China under the rule of 
the powers, and we are thus committed irretrievably to the " open 
door " so long as we retain a foothold in the Philippines. 

How fortunate it would have been had this nation been checked 
in its policy of imperialism by a lack of revenues that furnished 
the means for these new and dangerous enterprises. How much 
would we have saved in blood and treasure and in national honor. 

Occasionally some one with a sinister design concealed rises up 
and says, " give us expansion with the golden rule." These prin- 
ciples do not go together. No such incongruous thoughts can 
inspire one prompted by true Americanism. The golden rule is 
too sweet, too harmonious, too Christian, to enter into a problem 
that involves the shedding of human blood. 

Why invoke " manifest destiny " and the "golden rule " to jus- 
tify oppression , bloodshed , and warfare? He that does this clothes 
in the livery of the best masters to serve the devil in. If appeals 
to religion can be made, if the "golden rule" and "manifest 
destiny " can cover the crime of imperialism, how much, I won- 
der, will these great cardinals be appealed to in years to come to 
cover up national sins? 

It is claimed that we annexed the Hawaiian Islands by reason 
of their strategic value as a key to the Pacific and to prevent the 
peaceful invasion of them by the Japanese. It is asserted that 
Porto Rico came to us as a fruit of war, and that she is also of 
value as a key, as a strategic point in the Atlantic. Of these two 
keys one was admitted under the Constitution, the other outside 
its pale. 

We hold a suzerainty in form over Cuba, because it is alleged 
she is near our shores, and the Monroe doctrine is again invoked. 

The same class of statesmen would have us purchase the Danish 
West Indies from the King of Denmark, not for a strategic point, 
for we have already Porto Rico, but in furtherance of and main- 
tenance of the Monroe doctrine. They appeal to the Monroe doc- 
trine to justify colonial rule in the West, but abandon it in their 
attitude in the Far East. Why appeal to the Monroe doctrine to 
justify the holding of islands in the West and refute and repudi- 
ate it by holding islands in the East? 

Those in whose interest this policy is urged, without compunc- 
tion, if indeed the word conscience can be found in the lexicon of 
commercialdom, with a versatility and elasticity they claim that 
manifest destiny guided us to the Philippines. If manifest des- 
tiny and not the commercial interests guided us to the Philippine 

4952 



Islands, what power is it that urges on to the rule of China? Was 
there ever an instance where the exercise of a power was more 
exacting and autocratic than that in which we joined the powers 
in the rule over China? Can we dissociate this exercise of sov- 
ereignty from the abject submission of China and the absolute 
rule of the powers? The United States, in conjunction with the 
other countries of Europe, becomes a tyrant for the rule of a 
weaker country. 

Why this departure? Why should this country enter into the 
politics of Asia? Thus are islands annexed, entangling alliances 
assumed, and the insidious wiles of foreign influences courted 
against our traditions and against our most familiar notions of 
American prudence and policy, because the commercial powers 
of this country, which already fully control the legitimate markets 
of the world, desire the Government to use its power and its 
money to open up new and untried and un-American fields for 
exploitation. 

The American laboring man, who has the power to control his 
country's policy, can not see in this new-fledged system any guar- 
anty for his interests or his future safety and protection. You 
have bound the Philippines down with chains. You have op- 
pressed Porto Rico. You have joined the powers in the control 
of China. Yoti have curbed the freedom of Cuba, and, after tying 
her hand and foot, you are getting ready to still extend your char- 
acter as men of ' ' easy international morality ' ' by stifling your con- 
sciences against her appeals for humanity. You have raped her 
industries, and if you refuse her full reciprocity you lay her help- 
lessly at your feet. 

Hawaii so far has escaped. She was annexed in 1898. when we 
were imbued with the spirit of true Americanism. The Hawaiian 
Islands were admitted to full fellowship under the Constitution 
and the flag. 

In passing the organic law for their government we ruthlessly 
and rightly tore down the slave flag that covered the serfdom 
there before, and snatched from the driver's hand the lash that 
beat the backs of men and women who labored under contract. 
I voted against the admission of Hawaii, believing that American 
labor would suffer by its inclusion. 

To those who favor island annexation the unwelcome truth has 
been unfolded by our experiences in Hawaii. The census of 1900 
shows that of the total population of 154,000 in an area one-fifth 
the extent of Indiana, 25,767 are Chinese as against 17,002 in 1890, 
and 61,111 Japanese in 1900 as against 12,360 in 1890. 

The census shows a population of native and mixed Hawaiian 
blood of 37,918. 

This is the heterogeneous admixture of the un-American races 
that were inflicted upon the laboring men of this country by the 
resolution of the gentleman from Nevada [Mr. NEWLANDS] . and 
as he has recently introduced a resolution for the annexation of 
Cuba I hope that in the interest of American labor he will see the 
evil consequences to our workingmen and forbear bringing islands 
into our dominion. Let us aid Cuba to help herself. With this 
our mission is ended. Can our laboring men compete with the 
Chinese and the Japanese of Hawaii or with the native Hawaiians? 

This is full American territory. They must be admitted with 
full privilege with the mainland or the Constitution be endan- 
gered by attempts to keep them out. Such is colonial rule in its 
4952 



protection to labor, and thus must you abandon the interest of 
the toilers or give but a limited constitutional guaranty an( j p ro . 
tection to the inhabitants of Hawaii. 

There is no reason for duplicity or deception, for uncertainty 
or vagueness. Our Government is strong in military prowess. It 
should be just and merciful and magnanimous. It must deal 
fairly with the soldiers and their families, who are tortured and 
distressed in body and in mind by deadly war and pestilential dis- 
ease. Our Government must be fair to them or retribution will 
come. 

The President and his advisers know full well the meaning of 
language, and they can say that it is the purpose to give the Phil- 
ippines their independence, as we did to Cuba, and at that instant 
the war in the Philippines will be ended. 

The President has not said so. His advisers have not said so, 
and the war goes on. All civilized nations know the consequences 
of war. Americans know them full well. Our duty lies along 
the pathway blazed out by the Declaration of Independence, the 
Constitution, our traditions, and humanity. 

The Bacon resolution, introduced in the Senate before the dire- 
ful consequences in the Philippines had befallen us, would have 
spared and rescued us from these misfortunes. 

It reads like this: 

Resolved further, That the United States hereby disclaim any disposition 
or intention to exercise permanent sovereignty, jurisdiction, or control over 
said islands, and assert their determination, when a stable and independent 
overnineut shall have been erected therein, entitled in the judgment of the 
Government of the United States to recognition as such, to transfer to said 
government, upon terms which shall be reasonable and jnst, all rights se- 
cured under the cession by Spain, and to thereupon leave the government 
and control of the islands to their people. 

This resolution was opposed by the body of Republican Sena- 
tors and was supported by the Democrats. The vote resulted in 
a tie and was decided in the negative by the deciding vote of the 
Republican Vice-President. It may have been thought at that 
time that there would be no serious insurrection, no serious re- 
bellion, no strenuous war for human liberty, and no great drain 
in money. All these matters have been made clear to us now, to 
our misfortune. 

Our duty is made plain to us in the language of the Democratic 
platform, which but voices true Americanism. It says: "We 
favor an immediate declaration of the nation's purpose to give to 
the Filipinos, first, a stable form of government; second, independ- 
ence, and, third, protection from outside interference, such as 
has been given for nearly a century to the Republics of Cen- 
tral and South America." 

There is not a Filipino of the millions on the islands, from the 
most cultured to the slave-owning, polygamous inhabitants of the 
Sulus, who cares for us or for our institutions, except as their at- 
tachment is held by the mighty arbitrament of the sword or by 
the more mild and seductive influences of money, niched by tax- 
ation from the islanders to hoist into office mercenary Filipinos, 
whose attachment to our Government is measured by the tenure 
of their offices and the amount of the perquisites they afford. 

Every Filipino who has a sense of patriotism as it is understood 

by Americans is to us an enemy, a traitor, or a spy. This is 

shown by the testimony of our officers, military and civil. Our 

warfare shows it, and it is disclosed in the history of the islands. 

4952 



10 

Filipinos may be in the service of the United States, they may 
pretend to be our friends, but they will wait forever to strike 
the invader; and when the opportunity comes and the blow is 
struck, it will show us the folly of lulling ourselves into a security 
while treachery was so plainly written in their dissembled conduct. 

From all the reports that come to us it does not take much 
penetration to see through the slight veneer that covers the real 
character. 

If this position is not correct, then no one heretofore has cor- 
rectly written the history of these islands and the 8,000,000 peo- 
ple. If this position is not sound, then no one heretofore has 
understood human nature the world over. 

The spirit of rebellion, as we call it, the spirit of patriotism, as 
they call it, is on the islands to stay, and the only question that 
concerns our people is whether we should be taxed to hire sol- 
diers, to buy war ships and war supplies to suppress it. All told, 
colonial rule costs us annually over a hundred million. It can 
not be eradicated entirely. It will smolder on in embers, while 
Wheaton's 50,000 soldiers patrol the coasts and are quartered 
among them. Under daring chiefs and leaders they will rise 
from year to year in insurrection and rebellion. Sickness and 
death stalks in the wake of our army there, and plague and pesti- 
lential disease overtakes them. 

To carry on this colonial Philippine policy we are taxed, not 
only for war, but we are taxed in the lives and limbs and health 
of our soldiers, taxed in tears and anguish of mothers and sisters, 
whose sons and brothers have been sent to those far-away islands 
on a dreadful mission. To mitigate in some measure the horrors 
of that climate it is recommended that the soldiers be relieved in 
a year or two of service. 

The necessity for this regulation shows the danger in the cli- 
mate. But who can tell how many will fall in that time victims 
to it by diseases peculiar to the climate? Surely more than in 
battle. How many will be wrecked for lives, and how liberal 
will the Government be to them in pensions? Let these consid- 
erations enter into the questions of taxation. 

The managers of the Republican party were wont to tell us on 
this floor for several years that it was but a shadow of an insur- 
rection in the Philippines; that our prophecies that it would be 
long, stubborn, and dangerous were ridiculous, and that the facts 
upon which this judgment was based existed nowhere but in the 
mind of some weak or designing and unpatriotic person. But 
the spark that kindled the flame grew to be a dreadful conflagra- 
tion that takes more than one-half our Army to smother. They can 
only allay it. They can not conquer it altogether. How differ- 
ent the conditions here and there. 

Seventy-five million people here and an Army less than one- 
half of the whole; an insurrectionary and dissatisfied people there 
numbering8,000,000,and more than one-half of our Army needed 
to coerce and suppress them. And such a method of warfare! 
A system that punishes the promulgation of the Declaration of 
Independence and Constitution of the United States! These con- 
siderations are not sentimental. They are real; they are sub- 
stantial. 

If sentimentality were to be appealed to, we could cite that the 
war in Cuba was waged in the cause of liberty and humanity. 

4952 



11 

Now we offer them a sort of liberty, a diluted liberty, diluted by 
the Platt amendment. 

But we give them a form of liberty, and when they set up a 
stable form of government it will be easy enough for the Cubans, 
under the sentiment that prevails in America, if I mistake not, to 
shake off any hold that this country may claim to have or any 
restraints it may have imposed, which were notoriously secured 
under duress from the people of Cuba. 

Why not give the same guaranties to the Philippines? There 
is a similarity between the case of Cuba and the Philippines, if 
not in its good and humanitarian purposes and objects, at least 
in its harsh misfortunes, the result of war. 

Weyler's order to the Cuban reconcentrados meant torture, 
death, and starvation. 

Our generals in the Philippines are giving out the same recon- 
centrado order, in efforts to suppress the insurrection. 

England finds the same effective means in her war against the 
Boers who fight for the South African Republic. 

England against the Boers follows the example of Spain in 
Cuba; and has it come to this, Mr. Chairman, that we must fol- 
low the example of both to suppress the Filipinos? 

To-day little Boer boys, snatched from their homes in the ab- 
sence of their parents and imprisoned, now are crying for their 
fathers and their mothers; and little Boer girls, in reconcentrado 
camps, to-day are crying, bitterly crying, for their mothers and 
their fathers. Must we follow their example? They were kid- 
napped, many of them, and carried from their homes, and are 
now held in prison in the name of human warfare. They are 
kept from care and protection of parent. This is warfare as 
England understands it, as Spain understood it, and it is the sys- 
tem that is being adopted in the Philippines by our officers. 

Can such acts be brutalities only when practiced by Spain and 
England? 

Our history is moving in cycles. Our soldiers who went to Cuba 
in that war for liberty and humanity found reconcentrado camps 
with untold sufferings under the Spanish. Our soldiers now, who 
go to the Philippines, find the same camps of suffering and dis- 
tress under American officers. 

The laboring man is taxed to support a system of colonial rule 
that strikes at his vital interest. 

Let him beware. When he understands the situation, he will 
rebel against it. If he fails to heed the admonition enforced by 
a departure from more than a hundred years of constitutional 
government for his protection, if he fails to do his duty, for he 
still has the sovereign power, and a horde of Asiatics and kindred 
peoples are brought in closer relations with us, then not only will 
labor suffer in his day, but the cloud will hang over his children 
in the coming generation. [Applause on the Democratic side.] 

4952 



To Repeal War-Revenue Taxation. 



Monday, February 17, 1902, 

On the bill (H. E. 10530) to repeal war-revenue taxation, and for other pur- 
poses. 

Mr. ROBINSON of Indiana said: 

Mr. SPEAKER: I shall avail myself of the privilege afforded to 
present my views apropos of the subject under consideration. 

This measure for the repeal of war taxes is not timely. It has 
been too long deferred. The Ways and Means Committee, abus- 
ing the patience of the country by its refusal to reduce taxation, 
has until now shielded itself from the demands of the people by 
the power of the same rules that it now invokes for the speedy 
passage of this bill. Does the haste now evinced show an awaken- 
ing to a sense of dereliction of duty? Voicing the sentiment of 
the country, we on this side have repeatedly demanded a repeal 
of. these taxes, but as often you refused, and you were fortified in 
these refusals by the drastic rules of the House. 

So long as such rules continue no one of the minority will be 
held responsible for any act of legislation. 

But how is it with you of the majority, whose constituencies 
demand lower taxes, a control of trusts, and, withal, that you 
should represent them on this floor? How can you, who have the 
power, and how can your constituencies, submit to this tyranny 
of the rules? For years, under Republican rule, the most popu- 
lar branch of the American Congress has been governed with a rod 
of iron, wielded by a few on the floor, and under the sanction of 
iron rules by those few promoted and sustained. 

Histoiy records that we have a republican form of govern- 
ment, but the evidence of it is not foiind in the House of Repre- 
sentatives. Scourged in conscience and in action, with party 
fealty making cowards of you all, you members of the majority, 
and your constituencies are disfranchised, while this body exists 
only as a relic of a proud and historic form of people's govern- 
ment intended by our fathers to have been transmitted to their 
posterity. 

Must the people look only to the Senate for all there is of or- 
derly procedure, discussion, and deliberation in the American Con- 
gress? On taxation measures it seems they must. For years a 
surplus in the Treasury has been piling up, with all the attendant 
evils. Evils in extravagance, in ill-fated and ill-starred ventures 
have ensued from a-failure to repeal these burdensome war taxes 
long ago. 

Policies un-American and unfortunate have been pursued 
which would never have been dreamed of if an unending drain of 
taxes had not been piled up in the Treasury. 

Why were they not repealed after the Spanish war was over, 
as was promised? It lasted only ninety days. 

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13 

The answer will disclose the attempt to change the principles 
of the Republic, and show a departure to the new and untried 
paths of colonial rule by the Republican party. Till then that 
party had stood for the rights of self-government, the equality of 
man, and for the eternal principle that all men should be free. 

Where is your love of liberty now, your altruism and philan- 
thropy, if you rob a people of self-government and deny to them 
the constitutional and traditional rights that Americans enjoy? 
This change has come through broken promises, perfidy, and 
national dishonor. 

In 1898, when humanity and love of liberty caused us to declare 
war for Cuba, true Americanism actuated the hearts and minds 
of statesmen on this floor. 

I read from the debates on the war-tax bill from the 27th to the 
29th of April, 1898. 

The gentleman from Maine, Mr. Dingley, whose spirit has since 
gone across the Great Divide, who at that time ably represented 
his party's policies on that side, said: 

Mr. DINGLEY. Mr. Chairman, this bill, as the title indicates, is a war meas- 
ure a measure forced upon us by reason of the fact that the United States is 
now engaged in a war with Spain, and it is in view of this fact that the Com- 
mittee on Ways and Means have felt called upon to take early action with 
reference to replenishing the Treasury and furnishing a revenue for carrying 
on the war. 

The gentleman from Iowa [Mr. DOLLIVER] who has since gone 
to the Senate, said in the same connection: 

Mr. DOI.OVER. I have said these things because I want the House to un- 
derstand that the measure which is here proposed is no confession on our 
part of the failure of the Dingley bill. It aims to create new revenues to 
cover new expenditures. It levies wartaxes bacause we are on the threshold 
of war times. 

The gentleman from Illinois [Mr. HOPKINS] , who also repre- 
sented well his party, then said: 

Mr. HOPKINS. Mr. Chairman, the bill we have under consideration is, as 
has been well stated by the gentlemen on this side who have preceded me, 
prepared not to carry on and pay the necessary expenses of the Government 
in time of peace, but to meet the expenses of the emergency that is upon us. 

But it remained for the distinguished gentleman from Illinois 
[Mr. CANNON] , the chairman of the Appropriations Committee, 
to round up the purposes of his party in providing for war tax 
four years ago. His standing made it appropriate for him to 
speak, and he spoke in prophecy. He said: 

Mr. CANNON. I understand, in the third place, when the war ceases, that 
it will be the duty of the general Congress to immediately when we have 
no longer need for these revenues repeal the law. [Applause.] That is 
what I understand. * * * It is strictly and exclusively a war-revenue 
matter. 

And further he said: 

Not one dollar will be raised by taxation; not one dollar will be raised by 
borrowing, except as it is needed. If the war ends in six months, as the gen- 
tleman from Kentucky thinks it will, then we shall be in a position six months 
from now to repeal this taxation. 

This language is particularly significant now, though it was 
uttered four years ago. 

The gentleman to-day is regarded as the "watchdog of the 
Treasury; " the holder of the keys; the tribune of the people; one 
whom the Democrats gladly join in his efforts to secure economy. 
To-day he decried the evils of a surplus in the Treasury. He used 
his usual vigorous language, the same as he did in his speech four 
years ago. But, sir, what has our friend been doing during the 
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last four years of stupendous accumulation of surplus and wild 
enterprises to consume and dissipate it? 

Why has he slept for four years on this proposition? He knew 
and deprecated the surplus and its evils; but he was silenced, as 
was many of his Republican colleagues, by the rules of the House. 
He can no more have his way than can others, so long as the 
present rules thwart the individual will of members and so long 
as the members of the majority shrink from the discharge of their 
duty in overturning those rules. 

To-day the gentleman repeated the sentiments of his speech 
four years ago, but overlooked his silence of four years cruelly 
imposed by the Reed rules, and when the party lash was heard 
to-day he, with others, rushed within the lines. 

Mr. PAYNE, who succeeded to the leadership after the death of 
the lamented Mr. Dingley and is now chairman of the Ways and 
Means Committee, on April 29, 1898, used this language: 

The proposition of the gentleman from Massachusetts is that we provide 
here for a set of bonds that would be payable in three years, because, he 
says, he wants to continue these war taxes and pay these bonds. The propo- 
sition of the committee is that when the war is over we cut off the war taxes 
[applause], and that wo pay the bonds as we paid the bonds of the late war- 
out of the usual and ordinary taxes of the Government. 

These were the promises of leaders solemnly made, but the 
taxes went on. Extravagance encouraged by the acctimulating 
surplus ran riot. 

Vicious practices and policies were encouraged by the glitter 
of the people's money in the vaults. A useless and unheard-of 
surplus was erected, and war taxes went on till it reaches now, 
with the gold reserve, $325,000,000. 

More than one-half of this is taken from the avenues of busi- 
ness by taxation, so much indeed that you found it necessary to 
resort to a dangerous and pernicious policy to return it to the 
people. 

Under the Gage system of favoritism to national banks we find 
to-day $107,000,000 in round numbers deposited, without interest, 
in national banks scattered over the country, but largely in the 
East and in large cities. 

This is the people's money, collected from them by the National 
Government in the form of war taxes. It is placed in the banks 
to prevent a stringency in the money market. It can be thus 
got out in the avenues of business by the people paying interest 
to the banks to get it. As this amount is strictly the people's 
money, and as they get it from the banks that hold it till the 
people pay an interest to receive it, it may be claimed by the 
wily money changer that the people are their own bankers; but 
this will hardly be relished, as they have to pay interest to get 
their own money from their own banker. The Lord be merciful 
to them, as their own money mtist percolate its way to them 
through the clay of a national banker. This is one of the vicious 
expedients of the great surplus project, one of the means to 
which end was the continuance of war taxes. 

The vices of this system are easily shown. It is dangerous to 
make the national banks special favorites of the Government. 
It is still worse to regulate the exercise of such a power so that 
only a select coterie of bankers become the beneficiaries of this 
peculiar system, of surplus offset. 

A law may be general in its terms, but the ways of evasion seem 
to be known and easy in Administration circles. This system may 
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A "MI inn iii | i 

00 104391 



15 

be useful in certain exigencies, but in most cases the practice will 
be vicious and violative of the best interest of the people. 

Its practice confesses an unjust use of the taxing power, for 
without an unnecessary accumulation there would be no transfer 
of the money to the banks. When is this money to be loaned to 
the banks and when withdrawn? In good times or in times of 
panic? Will the Government be able at all times to withdraw it 
with ease? Would it not be especially difficult to withdraw it in 
panicky times? 

To the bankers of what section will it first go? To those sec- 
tions where stock gambling and where dealing in options and 
margins may affect local conditions, or will it go to the West for 
the movement of crops? 

The answers to these queries will show the extreme danger that 
inheres in the policy. 

Such a discretion is lodged in the Secretary of the Treasury 
he is made a Napoleon of finance and a Czar over our money. 

An officer should not have such a power, or be subject to the 
influences that surrounds the exercise of it. Those who sub- 
merge patriotism to greed would encourage excessive taxation to 
accumulate a surplus, to get the pelf. 

The decisions to be made under such a power are too momentous 
to the people, too fraught with consequences to give to the Secre- 
tary of the Treasury the right to make them. 

Another practice open to the same temptations and abuses as 
the one just mentioned has likewise been encouraged by over- 
taxation the piirchase of United States bonds by the Secretary 
of the Treasury. 

Why should a premium for Government bonds be paid with the 
people's money, when the people could usefully employ that 
money till the bonds matured? Why exact taxation and pay a 
premium for low interest-bonds not yet due? 

Randolph's policy of " pay your debts as you go " is one to be 
commended, and the speedy payment of debts outstanding is 
likewise good policy in public administration. It is not a good 
rule to excessively tax to provide a surplus from which bonds can 
be purchased at the market price; which means at a premium, 
especially when the people, if not so excessively taxed, would be 
better able to pay off their private, State, and municipal debts, 
which usually hang at a higher rate of interest over their heads. 

The instances in our country's history to prove the wisdom of 
this practice will be rare. The evil lies in the overcollection of 
tuxt's, and the flagrant abuse, long continued, was caused by the 
failure long ago to repeal these taxes in response to the demands 
of the people. The system gives opportunity to take advantage 
by the banks and bond-holding classes, who must always be closely 
allied in interest. 

When the Government offers to purchase the price of bonds 
goes up. So when the Ways and Means Committee adopt a 
system of taxation that will accumulate a surplus, the money 
manipulators know this and that the Government will offer to 
purchase their bonds, and the price goes up. The price is not 
always governed by their value as interest-bearing securities, be- 
ing the basis of the banking system that enhances them, and the 
fewer of them the greater the value. If the bondholders would 
so far permit the Government to get out of debt so as to mate- 
rially reduce its bonds, no one can tell the price to which they 

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16 

would go, since they furnish to the national banker a peculiar and 
valuable monopoly. 

The Republican policy has been to keep up taxation. They 
never stopped at $150,000,000 gold reserve and a good working 
balance, but taxes continued till it reaches the grand total of 
$325,000,000 in the Treasury. 

For several years it has been a race between the Republican 
members of the Ways and Means Committee, that originates rev- 
enue measures, taxing the people on the one hand, and Repub- 
lican Secretary Gage on the other getting it out to the bankers, 
the bondholders, and the people. 

How did he do it? By depositing it in the banks without in- 
terest and the purchase of bonds at a premium. 

A month before his resignation Secretary Gage proudly re- 
counted that since April, 1901 in nine months he had purchased 
$58,714,700 of bonds, for which he had paid $72,226,845. 

Who placed it in his hands to pay in premiums on the purchase 
of bonds $13,512,145 in nine months? Clearly the Republicans in 
Congress, acting under the leadership of this committee, who 
kept up these war taxes to create a surplus and long after they 
were needed for an economical administration of the Govern- 
ment. 

In this class I do not include the $20.000,000 paid to Spain for 
the Philippine Islands, and for a war, the end of which has been 
often predicted but has never come. 

The mooted purchase of the Danish West Indies would never 
have been thought of if it had not been invited by the surplus. 
During thirty years they have been on the bargain counter. The 
overflowing Treasuiy furnishes an opportune time to try to press 
them upon us. 

Mr. Speaker, the rule adopted gives us no right to amend the 
bill proposed. The minority came here this morning knowing that 
they would be compelled to take the medicine in doses and ingre- 
dients that your rules prescribed for them. We have no power 
by amendment or repeal to change another great power with 
which the Secretary of the Treasury was clothed by a provision 
of the war-tax bill and which is unrepealed by this the right to 
borrow not more than $100,000, 000 on certificates of indebtedness. 
This is the first time in the history of the Government that this 
grant of power has been given. It wotild be rare, indeed, that 
availment of this provision should be made, but it stands as an ad- 
ditional reason why a large surplus should not be created by tax- 
ation. It furnishes adequate protection against a reduction of a 
fair working balance in the United States Treasury. 

While an administration would hesitate long before it issued 
such certificates of indebtedness without calling Congress to- 
gether, if it were in adjournment, yet so long as the law remains 
there can be less excuse for the reckless building up of a surplus, 
which of late has been the policy of the Administration. 

From a political and official standpoint the depositing of money 
without interest with the national banks to the amount of 
$107,000,000 and the payment each year of millions in premiums 
on the purchase of Government bonds is less reprehensible than 
is the action of the party in power in permitting these taxes to 
remain which made possible the large surplus and the great abuses 
connected therewith. 

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